In our office we receive many questions regarding “Counting our Macros”, how many carbohydrates we should have in a day, is a ketogenic diet the right diet for weight loss, or what about that Atkins diet. Well, we now have a new book out there called Grain Brain by Dr. Perlmutter, a neurologist, that is recommending a low carbohydrate diet for everyone to prevent “toxic brain”, aka neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, depression, and others. So, does this mean all of us should be focusing on a very low carbohydrate diet (<60 grams/d) to prevent these conditions? Well, people are all individualized and a one size fits all plan is not the best option! There is some truth here, very low carb (VLC) and ketogenic diets can be effective therapeutic tools for treating many neurological disorders like epilepsy and studies have shown some promise with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s but there has not been any research yet showing that a VLC diet will help prevent these conditions! You will find no argument here the idea that refined and processed carbs like flour and sugar contribute to modern disease, there’s no evidence to suggest that unrefined, whole-food carbohydrates do. In fact, there are three compelling reasons why this is not the case.

Here is a great link discussing this new book and three compelling reasons why this is not the case.